i8si.] 



ARRIVAL AT QUIA. 



187 



Bidding adieu to the Commandante, Senhor Tenente Anto- 

 nio Filisberto Correio de Araujo, who had treated me with the 

 greatest kindness and hospitaHty, I proceeded on to Guia, 

 where I arrived about the end of April, hoping to find Senhor 

 L. ready, soon to start for the river Uaupes ; but I was again 

 doomed to delay, for a canoe which had been sent to Barra 

 had not yet returned, and we could not start till it came. It 

 was now due, but as it was manned by Indians, only who had 

 no particular interest in hurrying back, it might very well be a 

 month longer. And so it proved, for it did not arrive till the 

 end of May. All that time I could do but little ; the season 

 was very wet, and Guia was a poor locality. Fishes were my 

 principal resource, as Senhor L. had a fisherman out every 

 day, to procure us our suppers, and I always had the day's 

 sport brought to nie first, to select any species I had not yet 

 seen. In this way I constantly got new kinds, and became 

 more than ever impressed with the extraordinary variety and 

 abundance of the inhabitants of these rivers. I had now 

 figured and described a hundred and sixty species from the Rio 

 Negro alone ; I had besides seen many others ; and fresh varie- 

 ties still occurred as abundantly as ever in every new locality. 

 I am convinced that the number of species in the Rio Negro 

 and its tributaries alone would be found to amount to five or 

 six hundred. But the Amazon has most of its fishes peculiar 

 to itself, and so have all its numerous tributaries, especially in 

 their upper waters ; so that the number of distinct kinds 

 inhabiting the whole basin of the Amazon must be immense. 



